Jonathan Karl

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's almost acting like a guy that feels like he's

(00:01):
running out of time. I mean like he's seventy nine
years old. He doesn't really exercise. You know, his diet
isn't exactly the model diet.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast, and
today in the studio we have none other than the
author of Retribution, Jonathan Carl, the Washington correspondent for ABC News.
This is a fascinating read, and well, the man's here,

(00:31):
let's get into it. We are joined by Jonathan Carl,
ABC's Washington bureau chief and the author of God Help
Us Only Rival by Michael Wolfe, four books on Donald Trump,
including his latest Retribution, which is a gripping read. I
will say I curled up with this book big cup

(00:52):
of tea, big under my blanket as the first cold
of the winter crept upon us. I couldn't put it down.
And you start with a conversation that you have on
the phone with Donald Trump when you call him to
congratulate him on being the President elect, and then you
refer to many conversations you have throughout the book with him.

(01:15):
It feels like the two of you are in an
abusive relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
It feels like that with a lot of people. With
Donald Trump. I mean, look, it's by the way, I
should say one thing. I am not the Washington Bureau chief.
I am the Chief Washington Correspondent, and I want to
thank you. Sorry to Rick Cline, who is our bureau chief.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Bricklin, I'm sorry I insulted to I'm so, and I
would never.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Want that responsibility. That would mean I'd actually have to run,
you know, the place, so I you know, yeah, I mean, look,
I'm just.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Going to point out that the Daily Beast is so
efficient that we have a Washington Bureau chief and Chief
Washington Correspondent in David.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
We have a smaller team than.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I tell my friends at ABC that I like, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
All right, since we've started off, this is very frightening.
We've already started off, and I've got your title wrong.
But but it does feel like you're in an abusive
relationship with Trump and sometimes he calls you and he
loves you, and other times he calls you out in
public and tells you you're part of the problem.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah. I mean, look, first of all, I've known the
guy for thirty plus years. I mean I first interviewed
him when I was a young New York Post reporter,
you know, running around Trump Tower, and he was showing
me all his glories and you know, telling I mean,
it was like he's almost the same guy that he
was back then. But I've known him when he came
to the White House. I was the chief, you know,

(02:28):
White House correspondent for ABC. I also was the president
of the White House Correspondence Association. But I was somebody
who knew him and somebody who he had known for
a long time. So there is that relationship and he
gets I think I've gotten the sense over time that
he always thinks that he can pull me in and
I'm going to be, like, you know, in his camp

(02:51):
in some way, and he's understanding, I'm a journalist. We're
not in anybody's camp, right, And he doesn't really understand that.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
I mean, how can he not understand that after all
these years, You've known him for thirty years, How can
he not understand that, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I mean he said to me recently, first of all,
he attacked me recently over my hair. He's very unusual
that no Trump, you know, he said, he said to me,
it was it was a truth social post and he said,
what the hell happened to his hair? It was just
in aside in this rant he was on. And I

(03:27):
texted him after I saw that, and I said, well,
maybe I should get some advice from you on air.
I mean, you know the hair, and you know he's
and he gave me an angry response. He was clearly
genuinely upset and he and in his response he said,
you backed the wrong side, and I said, back, as
you know, I don't back any side. I report the facts.

(03:50):
He's like bullshit, and so it's he doesn't quite you know.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
But in the book, you do say that you didn't
expect him to win, that you didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I didn't it. No, I didn't. I didn't. You know,
Look I was I guess I was wrung twice on
this because I certainly didn't think he was going to
win in twenty sixteen. But back then, I'm not even
sure Donald Trump thought he was going to win.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
No, he seemed incredulous on the night when he was
actually clearly winning. He seemed a millennia was crying.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, I mean, I mean this was this was a
great adventure. I mean I took a lot of heat
as Trump will remind me of the time I did
the first network interview with Donald Trump up the twenty
sixteen cycle. It was back in twenty thirteen. He was
out in Iowa at this you know, religious right kind
of event called The Daily Leader, and you know, I

(04:40):
figured it was a slow August Sunday. We went out there.
I interviewed him for like a half an hour. It
was a very lively interview. We only used a few
minutes of it on the show. But people are like,
why are you spending any time talking to Donald Trump?
You know he's never going to run for president. You
know this is never going to happen. He's just trying
to get attention. He just wants to boost ra ratings

(05:00):
for The Apprentice. And you know, we aired part of
the interview and Trump always remembers that, and he's brought
it up to me. I can't tell you how many times.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
In a good way, because you did this seriously early and.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Everybody gave you a hard time. But BOYD, did you
get great ratings. I mean, I don't know what the
ratings were. We only aired a few minutes of it,
but but you know, he was like, and he he's
constantly brought this up. He's changed the venue of the
interview a couple of times, because I did a couple
interviews in those early times, and I actually didn't think
he was going to run either, but I thought he
was an interesting figure. Here was this, you know, liberal

(05:38):
big city developer back Democrats for his whole life, going
around and courting these Republicans. I thought it was an
interesting story. And I actually spent a lot of the
time asking him what he thought of the other Republicans.
And also there was like there was a moment I
was like, in this Birther thing, I mean, are you
prepared now to just, you know, apologize for what you
said about Obama? I mean, and admit that you were

(05:59):
totally wrong? And he was like, no, I don't think
I was wrong. And I was like, oh, come on.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
But isn't he and wasn't he as early as back then?
An absolute gift of a politician's interview because he's not
a politician, well, especially at.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
This time, especially at this time, because who were the
main figures in the party going into that into that election.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
I can't even remember them. He's clipped everybody.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
I'll give you two on one on each side. There
was Jeb Bush, right, and there was Hillary Clinton, right,
So low energy Jeb and Hillary Clinton. And and what
did they have in common is that they were so
careful about everything they said and calculated. You know, they
did very few interviews, and when they did, they were

(06:46):
very and every speech was very disciplined. They had a
discipline message. And here's Trump coming out, and it's like
you never know what's gonna what he's gonna say. And
and by the way, he's talking to everybody and at
all times, and and uh, this is you know, this
was the fascination. And this is how he really caught on.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
So you've written four books about him, You've really really
studied the man. How would you describe his personality? What
is his character? I mean, you've referred to him as
a Shakespearean character. What is his character?

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I mean this is not a unique insight at all,
but I mean it's everything about him. He wants to
be the center of attention at all times. And you
asked a question about he sounded like I had been
in an abusive relationship. But I'm not sure about that.
But I will say that his relationships with people around
him often feel like they are abusive relationship.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Well, and to clarify what I mean is, you don't
ever know where you are with him, right, You've no
idea if he's going to be nice Trump or nasty Trump.
He berates people publicly, he humiliates people publicly. He's done
that to you when you've been in the press line.
But then he'll call you and give you something. And
so that feels like a complicated relationship to navigate from

(08:10):
your position.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
But it's especially interesting with people that are in his
come in and out of his inner circle. Laws he
brings people in, Donald Trump can make you feel like
you are also the center of the inniverse because he
wants you interesting. You know, if you're around him, it's
like you must be a really big fricking deal, you know.

(08:32):
And so a lot of these people who come in,
who would by the way, never be within miles of
a White House with another president, derive so much of
their worth from the praise they receive from Donald Trump.
And then he can turn that off in a second
and make you feeling and then take away what is
now core to your sense of self worth. I mean,

(08:55):
Michael Cohen is like the most glaring example of this.
I mean, Michael Cohen, you guy that was you know,
dealing with taxi cab medallions and you know, graduated from
a you know, fiftier law school. And suddenly he is
there in office next to Trump's Trump Tower, and he's
the enforcer for the man. And and Michael Cohen was

(09:16):
as you know, he was. I recounted in one of
my earlier books. Uh, one of these early interviews I
had with Trump, which was done through Michael Cohen set
it up. And Michael Cohen like told my producer, my
young producer that was doing it, you know, if Carl
asks anything, I don't like, I'm gonna knock your camera over.

(09:39):
You better make sure this thing goes all right. I mean,
he was. And of course Michael Cohen's the guy that
says I would take a bullet for Donald Trump. I
would do anything for Donald Trump. And then you know,
Michael Cohen finds himself out on the out on the
ledge and he's kind of not defended by Trump, and
he takes that turn and now like it's well, and.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Then he goes to stay off right. He goes to
jail for that misplaced loyalty. So what is that about? Though?
This ability to turn on even his closest people. Is it?
Is it some kind of chemical imbalance? Is it like
a bipolar thing?

Speaker 1 (10:18):
What?

Speaker 2 (10:18):
What does can you give us more of a sense
of what it feels like to be in the orbit
of it? And also what people used to say about
Bill Clinton, which is that when you're with him, you
can feel like the most important person in the world.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, I mean it is you.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Look.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Look Rick Riley in that terrific book, Commander and Cheat
about Trump's golf game recount, also a great I mean
you know, and and Riley recounts covering a golf tournament
that was at a Trump property and he's there, and
he's there as a reporter for Sports Illustrated, and Trump

(10:52):
keeps introducing him to people as the publisher of Sports Illustrated,
and Riley is quietly saying, no, I'm a reporter, and
he keeps doing it, And finally, Rick Riley writes that
he pulls Trump aside, Why do you keep saying that,
you know, I'm not the publisher. I've told you I'm
not the publisher. Why do you keep saying Trump's answers
It sounds better, it sounds better, And so Rick Raley

(11:13):
didn't like that. He's a guy that you know, he
has a respect for the basic truth. But you know,
for people around Trump, you know, he's elevating them and
making them sound like they're the best, they're the smartest.
But in a minute, he can turn, and he does turn.
He'll turn back, but he does turn. And I think
what it does is it keeps people on edge, and

(11:34):
it makes it so that that loyalty that they must
express to Trump is always there and they're on edge
about it. I got to keep them happy. I got
to keep them happy. I got to serve him right.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
And doesn't it also mean that he's always in control of.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, he's always in control of them. He's always the
one in control one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
So if you're a lawyer for him, I mean I
heard this from people who covered the Stormy Daniels trial
that he would regularly just yell at his lawyers and
tell them that they were stupid, and they would say things,
and then he would give his own press conference and
completely undercut them. Why do people stay working for him?

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Well, you know, look, he I think that they're drawn
to the magnetism. And for for some of them, they
again they're in positions that they would never have with
anybody else. And what are they going to do, like
leave Trump and then go work for Ron DeSantis or something.
I mean, I mean, where are they going to be?
They probably aren't going to get hired by Rond des Angeline.
If they are, they're not going to be, you know,

(12:32):
given this this elevated iteratives, you mean, yeah, yeah, and
and and and the people and look and some people. Look,
there are people around Trump who have been around Trump
for a long time, who have been through all those
ups and downs, who are genuinely like infatuated with him
and loyal to him and think that he is I
think he is a great man. I mean, look, he

(12:54):
is that he is the most consequential president of our time.
Some people might look at that, Yeah, he's the most
consequentially He's he's you know, doing things that we'll be
dealing with the negative consequences forever. And those who think
he's you know, doing great things, I mean, like Dan
Scavino is a guy that has been with Trump since
he was working as a caddie for him. Now he

(13:15):
is the deputy chief of staff, he's the head of
presidential personnel. But He's been so much more than both
of those things. He's always been by Trump's side. And
you know, I mean Scamino is a total, total loyalist,
and I think he genuinely has admiration and appreciation for
the man, and you know, his all identity is bound
up in Trump and Trump at this point, a guy

(13:38):
like Scamino has been around so long, he's not you know,
I mean, he loves having dance Gamino around.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
And how does Susie Wiles figure in all this? I mean,
the chief of staff, first female chief of staff, and
I think the first time they met, she was still
working for Ronda Stans.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah. I mean, she's got nerves of steel, and and
she is you know, she's she's a loyalist. She's also
a pragmatist within within that world. And you know, I
think that the secret to her success, and there's a debate,
I think that she could well be there for all

(14:17):
four years. I mean I think that she's you know,
she's got no designs on leaving as far as I
can tell. And I think that Trump would Trump very
much relies on her. I think the secret to her
success is that she never actually tries to change Trump
she just you know, she's not there like debating him
on this policy or that policy, or you got to
do this, and that. She's like, Trump's gonna do what

(14:38):
he's going to do, and I'm going to make sure
that I keep kind of the trains running on time,
you know, in the White House, and keep out the
you know, try to keep the infighting to a minimum,
and I will kind of not tolerate any of the
any of that stuff that was so dominant in the
first Trump administration. So she's not like a huge influence

(15:00):
on what the guy actually does, but very effective. And
now that's the heart that I mean, Press secretary may
be the hardest, but chief of staff that Donald Trump
is a very hard job, and she's somehow managed to
pull it off.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
He's seventy nine. Yeah, you've covered for presidents. How does
his health and his energy seem to you? I mean
we've seen him covering up bruises on his hands with me.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
I mean, look, there's all kinds of speculation about that.
And then how much was making made of the fact
that he was closing his eyes in a recent you
know overlall. Yeah, I mean all that, so, but I
don't know, I think it's a very dangerous thing to
get involved in speculating about health. People have speculated about

(15:47):
his health since he was a candidate in twenty sixteen,
twenty fifteen, about his mental state and all of that.
I don't know. I mean, the guy, the guy actually
seems to have a hell of a lot of energy
even I mean, you know, like I said, he did
appear to be dozing off at an event.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
I mean, but to be fair, he'd just come back
from an Asian.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, and he doesn't sleep. I don't know how he
does it. I don't really understand it. Bill Clinton was
like this, Bill Clinton like slept like four hours a night.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Margaret that she didn't need more than five hours.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know how. You know,
It's like it must be like a gene or something
that you get to go. I can do that for
a couple of days, but I mean, come on after
a while and he he's up, he's taking calls later.
I would find that the best time to reach him
if I wanted to call him during the campaign was
either like late at night, you know, far later than

(16:42):
he would ever call most other people, and very early
in the morning. I mean We talked to him sometime
before seven, and he's already up. He's already watching television.
He's already got his you know, DVR going. He he's
you know, he's constantly constant energy, constant activity, and he's
almost acting like a guy that feels like he's running
out of time. So I, you know, I who knows.

(17:05):
I mean, like he's seventy nine years old. He doesn't
really exercise. You know, his diet isn't exactly the model diet.
You know, at some point all the speculation about his
health will be true. I just won't be the one
speculating on it.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Okay, you've covered four presidents, as we've said, what do
you think of the cabinet that he has assembled around
himself compared to previous presidents that you have known, Because
certainly he's appointed people who have like Dan Scovino, who
just mentioned, unusual backgrounds, to run enormous departments with huge

(17:44):
budgets and massive responsibilities.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
You know, it's not a team of rivals, although certainly
some of them do fight amongst them themselves for you know,
for Trump's good graces. This is a different cabinet than
his first cabinet. I mean, it's obviously different from other presidents,
but his first cabinet, he felt in need. He comes

(18:08):
to the White House. He's really never really spent any
time in Washington. I remember when I interviewed him in
Washington in twenty fourteen. You know, he had bought that,
you know, the old He had gotten that lease, the
ninety nine year lease on the old Post Office building.
He was building the Trump International Hotel. There was a
big sign out front saying Trump coming twenty sixteen, meaning
that the Trump Hotel was coming in twenty sixteen. And

(18:30):
he remarked to me just about how few times he
had actually literally even been in the city of Washington.
And it was almost like he was like bringing trophies
to his cabinet. He wanted to get people of great stature.
You know, Rex Tillerson is hardly what you would expect
the profile of the Secretary of State. He was the

(18:51):
CEO of Excellent Mobile. This guy's a titan. John Kelly
and Maddis, Jim Maddison, these are four star Marine general.
These are big, you know, people of consequence. Put him
in the cabinet Homeland Security, the Pentagon. Jeff Sessions was
a former federal judge, leading conservative in the in the Senate.

(19:13):
Make him your attorney general. These were people of consequence
and credentials, and all those people I just meant I
just mentioned Trump feels betrayed him. It's like, what good
did it have to have these people if they weren't
actually loyal to me? So this time around, he's not
caring so much about those credentials. It's truly about the

(19:35):
personal loyalty to him.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
And they weren't loyal to him. Rex Tillison famously got
quoted as saying Trump was an absolute more right, and
we know that they were trying to stop Trump from
doing what he wanted.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Madis and Kelly, I mean Kelly ended up calling him
a fascist. And Jeff Sessions refused to act like his
personal attorney. I mean, Sessions agreed with everything Trump was doing,
but he wouldn't take the step of like firing the
Independent counts a special council.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Right, and Gary Cone removed papers from his.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, Gary Cohen another one. I mean, there's a great
you know, golden side. I mean, these are like serious,
serious people, but they were serious people and they weren't
willing to do whatever the boss wanted. Him to do so.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
By implication, are you saying that the people he has
around him now are not serious.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I'm not going to say they're not serious, But what
I'm going to say is that people around him are
not going to be trying to steer him and control
him in that way. And you know, and the and
they'll make the argument, well, he's the one that the
American people elected. I actually had a very interesting conversation
with hr McMaster.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Head of National Security, He.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Was the National Security Advisor, and he often clashed with
with with Kelly, who was the chief of Staff at
the time, both of them generals. McMaster a three star
Army general, Kelly a four star Marine general, and Kelly
was constantly trying to like stop the president from doing
things kind of quietly, not not like confronting him head on,

(21:11):
but like but but there was a there was an
incident where it's actually really timely when you think about
where we are now. This this was in the first term,
where there was a meeting in the Oval Office McMaster,
Kelly and some of the other national security folks, and
Trump is demanding a war plan for Venezuela.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Totally time.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
And you know, he had various ideas, you know, naval
and bargo, but he wanted a whole list of military
options for Venezuela. And McMaster is like saying, sir, I
really don't think that's necessary. We have other tools in
our you know, we we've got diplomatic pressure, we've got
economic pressure. I really and Trump is getting like angry

(21:56):
with him, and he's like, what, I damn I want
a war plan for Venezuela. The meeting breaks up. McMaster
heads down the hall, you know, outside the Oval office,
and Kelly catches up with him and says, so, what
are you doing? And he's like, well, you know, I'm
gonna call I'm calling the Pentagon, and I'm gonna get

(22:17):
you know, get him to do what he wants. Don't
you do that? Are you kidding me? If you do that,
there's gonna be stories about how the military is preparing
for war with Then We're not gonna go to war
with Venezuela. Don't. So this is like a you know,
a fundamental disagreement about how you deal with a president

(22:37):
that you disagree with. Kelly didn't confront him in the
actual meeting, just listens to him. Let's event lets him
say what he wants to do. McMaster actually does, but
then the decision is made. Nobody elected hr McMaster or
John Kelly. They elected Donald Trump. So it's a fundamental

(22:57):
disagreement about how you how you deal with it. Well,
I think now you actually don't even have much of
either of those approaches. You don't have people that are
quietly trying to undermine him. You do have some like
you know, a recent example was the decision to indict
Tis James. The first one called me, call me, and
then Tis James out of the Eastern District of Virginia.

(23:19):
And Trump did hear advice from the leadership at the
Justice Department that was not a strong enough case and
not a good idea to go forward with. But he
charges through.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
And the person who was asked to do it, in
fact steps aside.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah yeah, the US attorney for the Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Well I was going to come onto the Justice Department
because you call the book retribution. Is it retribution against
the people that stopped him in his first administration as
much as it is retribution against his political enemies, who
are Democrats. So James comey, tish James. Well, in fact,
his own person, John Bolton.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah. Look, I think that it's multi leveled, and I
think that his retribution and by the way, you have
to and I'd really take time in the book to
sketch out what brought him back into power and the
depths of those criminal investigations and how he used that
both to motivate himself and his people were going to

(24:20):
get back at the people that did this. So clearly
he wants to go after the prosecutors. I mean that's
the tiss James of it. That's the talk of, you know,
going after Jack Smith and all of that.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, and at the end of your chapter on Jack Smith,
you have Jack Smith hiring his own Yeah, because he
knows what's coming his.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Last I mean, it's so dramatic these scenes in January
that this is the most fascinating transition in American history.
And I devote a significant amount of time to what
was going on and.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Also just as an asside, and I want to come
back to the retribution, but the personal details of him
with Biden in the car, all of that is it
feels like you're in the car with them. But go
back to Jack Smith and the drama of all that
and the case is that the Democrats had very slowly,
according to some people, Merrick Garland very slowly putting these together.

(25:11):
Obviously all fall apart.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, but Jack Smith, after the election, has to wrap
up his investigation. He knows that obviously they're not going
to go to trial. You have these indictments on the
classify documents, and on January sixth, it's not going to
go to trial. First of all, you can't. You can't
try a sitting President's pretty well established Justice Department policy.
And besides, he knows he's going to get fired the

(25:33):
minute the Trump comes in, So he knows he has
to wrap it up. So he does these final reports.
It's one final report, but it's got two parts. It's
the classified documents and it's the election case. And he
you know, his office is not at Main Justice. It's
in another part of Washington. It's like an unmarked, non
descriptive building behind Union station. He gets in the car

(25:57):
with an aid. He comes to Maine Justice physically hands
over the report to Merrick Garland and bids farewell, and
then he literally goes from Main Justice to one of
the big firms in DC and lawyers up because he
knows that his work is done, He then quietly resigns.
By the way, he announced his resignation in a footnote

(26:19):
in a court filing. But look, the retribution, what I
was saying is so he wants to go back after
those people. He wants to get back at the Democrats
who opposed him. But I think that the retribution that
he is most emphatic about are the Republicans who did
not back him sufficiently or betrayed him. And by the way,

(26:41):
Jim Comy a Republican, John Bolton obviously National Security and
you know, Steve Bannon recently floated the idea that Bill
Barr should be prosecuted and should be in prison. He said,
Bill Barr, I mean this.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Is like, well, didn't Steve Bannon also say that if
they didn't win the mid terms, they would all be
going to prison himself included.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I mean, look you arguing it. By the way, this
is one of the really disturbing things about this era
we are in. You have a feeling like there's almost
like no coming back from this cycle of recriminations. Look,
Trump has weaponized the Justice Department, there is no question.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Well, and he's put he put his own just to
remind people, he put his own personal lawyers as the
number one and number two, well, and Bondie and.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Blanche, Yeah, and basically the number three too. Remember Amil
Bovie was over there.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
I've forgotten about, yes, Yeah, and he was looking man.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
And he was running the Justice Department because for in
the beginning, because he didn't need centate confirmation for his job.
So he went over there before Bondie and before Blanche
got in. And he's the one that spearheaded the firing
of those top career prosecutors, the firing of the senior
leadership at the FBI, career FBI agents. It was you know,

(28:12):
as far as a lot of the people who worked
in Maine Justice spent their careers in Maine Justice taught.
It was like a reign of terror. It was a
purge of anybody remotely tied to any case that impinged
upon Donald Trump or on January sixth, and these were
this was his legal team. I mean literally, you watched
the trial in New York, Todd, Blanche is there, Trump

(28:34):
is there, and Amil Bovi are there.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
You've written four books about the guys, So when you
write your fifth book, what do you think is going
to be the narrative.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
I think that we are in for a hell of
a lot more. I mean, it's it's mind boggling to
think that we are not even out a year. We
are what are we had ten months yet?

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well coming up for ten months, it'll be the twenties.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
I you know, I don't know what where we go
from here. I don't know how Donald Trump acts if
he's faced with a Democratic Congress, because what we have
seen is you know that that he is going to
charge ahead, he is going to shatter norms. I think

(29:20):
there are people around him who would like to see
him defy court orders. He's he did that to a
degree with the the Bosberg order on the on the
flights to uh South Hotel Salvador. But but for the
most part, Trump has not gone as far as some
people around him. There's that theory of the of the
unitary executive, where basically, as Nixon put it in his

(29:42):
interview with David Frost, it's not illegal if the president
does that. Now. Trump hasn't quite pushed it to that degree,
but there are certainly those who believe he can. So
does he totally defy a Democratic Congress? Is there are
away for him to work in any way with the
Democrat Congress.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Part of his own congress, doesn't he mean, he's got
a Republican Congress them.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
And he's and he's operated largely through executive order, I mean,
not entirely. You need to do certain things that will
we had the government was shut down. I mean, but
so I I really I cannot tell you where we
are going. I don't think that he's serious about, you know,
running for a third term or anything like that. I
think that he'll be ready to go. But we're in

(30:29):
for I think. I mean, I don't want to use
a there's any one of many cliches you could use,
but this is obviously unchartered territory. So I my crystal
ball is not good on this one.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
All right, So final question, you say that you know,
if you want to get hold of him, you call
him very late at night or you call him early
in the morning. He clearly doesn't sleep very much. He
seems to travel a lot too. You have to cover
all of it. I know you have a team, but
you're the lead of the team. How do you looking
forward to the next three years, think about your own

(31:02):
energy and how do you stay on top of it?
And make sure that you're bringing sort of a clear
eye to it all.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
You know, Steve Bannon was the one that kind of
invented that kind of flood the zone and then they
can't cover it all, and they do that. I mean
any single day you feel like we're living through a month.
I think that the key is to try to focus
on what looks important and realizing there's no way you
can be on top of all of it. And ultimately

(31:34):
I will write one more book, but it will be
after it is all over, and I will want to
dig through. You know what has happened. Part of the
challenge with writing this book and why I wrote it
is this campaign was like that, So to have the
chance to take a step back and say what actually mattered,
because there are things that like dominate the media cycle

(31:55):
for you know days, which is like an eternity in
our world now that ended up being like they didn't
freaking matter at all.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Well, part of that is the extraordinary drama. You will
remember that Saturday evening when you got the call about
Butler Pennsylvania and someone trying to assassinate the president. Do
you think it was a genuine thing? Do you think
that Matthew Crooks was just a rando guy trying to
trying to kill someone that would bring him attention.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Look, there is something strange in our world right now,
which is the the erosion of the idea that there
is the truth, that you can depend on facts and
official sources of information, and people don't believe anything. And
it's this is actually the biggest challenge facing our democracy.
And with you know, we focused so much on people

(32:49):
on the right who are obsessed with conspiracies, and you know,
the craziness surrounding the twenty twenty election, and there was
I recounted in betrayal. You know, this this theory that
went all the way into the into the West wing
of the White House, the Italian spy satellites were used
to flip votes in you know, in Georgia voting machines.

(33:11):
I mean, give me a break. This stuff was cuckoo,
but it got the attention of the Chief of Staff
at the White House, who ordered the Justice Department and
the Pentagon to investigate it. Kooky stuff. Now there's I mean,
there's cookie stuff everywhere. And I can't tell you how
many people believe that that Butler was entirely it was

(33:34):
entirely a setup. I mean, tell that to the family
of Corey Comparatour who got killed, or the other two
who got seriously wounded. Tell it to my friends, the
photographers that were there, who including Evan Vucci, took that picture.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
This is an amazing picture, an incredible picture.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Doug Mills, who took the picture of the bullet. Oh,
he went back and looked and saw the bullet going
right by. I mean the Butler happened. It wasn't a Firstly,
if you tried to set that up, you would never
be able to set it up. That that that well,
I mean, we can debate what exactly happened with his ear.
I mean, did did the bullet hit his ear or

(34:14):
was it I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
I mean, they haven't been very transparent with the medical records.
But Thomas, but but Thomas Crook's climbed on that roof,
he took those shots. A Secret Service sniper took him
out by One of the extraordinary things that I learned

(34:34):
in the case of in the process of reconstructing Butler,
is that that was the first time in all of
the history of the Secret Service that there were counter
snipers at an event that didn't involve the president of
the United States. So counter snipers are part.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Of the security has president.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
It was the first time a Donald Trump event had
counter snipers. Was that event? And why Here's why this
is wild. It's because the Secret Service had been tracking
threats from Iran and increasing intelligence non specific but consistent

(35:17):
that Iran was going to try to assassinate Donald Trump.
So they decided, we need an extra layer of protection.
We're putting counter snipers. Now, there was no specific threat
from Iran at Butler, and there's no evidence that crooks
or anybody else had any ties to Iran, that Iran
had anything to do with happened in Butler. But they
were there because of the Iranian threats. So when other words,

(35:40):
Trump's life may have been saved because of Iran.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
You really can't make it up, can you. You can't
make it up. It's exraordinating, all right, So final question,
because it's always in the news and it's always bubbling
under Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, what do you think is in
the Epstein files? What all the Epstein file?

Speaker 1 (36:01):
I mean, it's like it's not like a file in
the cabinet I mean it's like it's just it just
means everything that the Justice Department has, it was part
of the case against Epstein, Everything that mentions Epstein's name.
There is no there's no like client so called client list.
I mean you could go through and pick out the names.
I don't know, but but I but I do know

(36:22):
this that when they were when Pam Bond he made
that promise We're going to release the Epstein files, They've
put an extraordinary amount of man power to compile everything
that it had Epstein's name or been involved in any
of the cases. And as they're going through it, you know,
Trump's name appears, it appears, and this is this is

(36:43):
actually not new. You know, he as we've seen the pictures,
we've seen the video, Trump has actually said it. You know,
they they he knew him. He went to he went
to some of his parties. He was in Epstein's address book.
I mean a lot of people were in ep stream
or in Epstein's address book. A lot of Democrats weren't Epstein's.
I mean, this is not a unique thing to Trump.

(37:04):
He's he was on the flight logs. A lot of
people were on Epstein's flight logs. So I mean, I
think it's highly likely that's why they didn't want to.
You know, the brakes were put on releasing them, although
that information wouldn't be new, so it's kind of it's
a strange thing.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
So I don't know, the emails coming out of the
Oversight committee seemed new.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah. And by the way, and those came from the estate,
so those are not from the criminal case. Now maybe
they're part of the criminal case as well. I don't know,
but the estate is also which where the birthday book
came from, the Jeffrey Epstein estate. It's interesting, by the
way that the Republicans in the House on that committee
had to support releasing that stuff. It was the Democrats

(37:51):
that put it out and highlighted, you know, those those
particular emails, but the Republicans didn't block the release of that.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Do you think there is a circle of Republicans who
sense that Trump is vulnerable? I mean, he's obviously in
a lame duck type of face, although he's still got
to get to the midterms and are trying to get
the party back from him. I mean, no, you don't
think that, right, Okay, because it feels like the Republican

(38:24):
Party has become the Trump Party, and I hear that
there are lots of Republicans out there who who hate
him and hate that and want to take it back.
But you don't think that's going on.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
No. I mean, look, I think there are Republicans that
are concerned about the direction. Marjorie Taylor Green is playing
an interesting role right now. But I don't see a
significant a move move away from Trump among the Republicans
at all. I don't. I mean, it'll happen eventually, I would,
I would assume. I mean it always, you know. I mean,
he will be alame duck, he will leave the White House.

(38:54):
They will have to figure out where they go from there.
But it is absolutely filled Donald Trump's Republican Party.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's so interesting to hear your insights. Thank you so
much for coming. You know, I used to think of
political biographies as being so dense and you couldn't get
through them. And this is like an amazing character study
of the most interesting man in the.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
World, I mean, the most conticquentural figure of our time.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, and that is Shakespearean. There you go, Nathan Carl,
Thank you very much, great, thank you. The most interesting
thing about it is that you would imagine that retribution
was about his Democratic enemies, but as Jonathan says, it's

(39:41):
also about his Republican enemies, the people on the Republican
side that actually tried to take Donald Trump down, that
tried to stop him doing what he wanted to in
his first administration. Anyway, strongly recommended it's holding forth on
the bestseller list. If you have been thank you for

(40:01):
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(40:45):
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